Photon management with nanostructures on concentrator solar cells

Optimizing the feature sizes of dielectric nanostructures on the top (ZnS) and bottom (SiO2) surfaces of a 1 mu m thick GaAs solar cell, we obtain a higher efficiency (34.4%) than a similar cell with a state of the art bilayer antireflection coating and a planar mirror (33.2%). The back side nanostructure increases the photocurrent due to enhanced optical path length inside the semiconductor, while the nanostructure on the front side increases the photocurrent due to lower reflectance losses. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.